Saturday, March 3, 2007

Today's "Private" Used To Be A "Private Soldier"

You don't see it much today but apparently what we now call a "private" in the army was once universally known as a "private soldier." Which raises the question, was this in contrast to a "public soldier"? I don't think so, but it makes me wonder about the term.

I did some digging and I found out about the term "soldier." Here's what I found:

A Soldier is one who serves in the Army and fights for pay. The name originates from Latin word soldus, short for the classical Latin word solidus. Solidus was an ancient Roman coin used for paying soldiers.
But what about "private soldier"? I've seen this is in a lot of old writings, such as a book of the collected writings of George Washington and, more recently, the book Andersonville. Andersonville is the first-hand story of a Union soldier captured during the Civil War, and the full title of the book is:

Andersonville
A Story of Rebel Military Prisons
Fifteen Months a Guest of the So-Called Southern Confederacy
A Private Soldier's Experience in Richmond, Andersonville, Savannah, Millen Blackshear, and Florence

I found this:

Private - The earliest record of this word dates to 1384, derived from the classical Latin word privatus, meaning to "set apart, belonging to oneself" (rather than the state or feudal lord). The phrase Private soldier meaning "one below the rank of a non-commissioned officer" - also known as a common soldier - entered usage in 1579 when individual citizens gained the privilege of enlisting or entering private contracts to serve as private soldiers in army units. It later became known as privateer in 1664, from the term private man of war, as in volunteer or buccaneer.
So it seems that what was once a privilege—the choice to enlist and get paid for fighting—has been replaced with the simple usage of just being the grunt who is low man on the totem pole. And the term has been shortened to just "private" in the same way that "general officer" has been shortened to "general."

Pretty dang interesting how language evolves.